YouTube journalism

YOUTUBE JOURNALISM
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Moisés Naím, Foreign Policy Magazine]
[Commentary] Welcome to the "YouTube effect." It is the phenomenon whereby video clips, often produced by individuals acting on their own, are rapidly disseminated worldwide on websites such as YouTube and Google Video. YouTube has 34 million monthly visitors, and 65,000 new videos are posted every day. Most are frivolous, produced by and for the teenagers who make up the majority of the site's visitors. But some are serious. YouTube includes videos posted by terrorists, human rights groups and U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Some are clips of incidents that have political consequences or document important trends, such as global warming, illegal immigration and corruption. Some videos reveal truths. Others spread propaganda and outright lies. YouTube is a mixed blessing: It is now harder to know what to believe. The good news is that the YouTube effect is already creating a strong demand for reliable guides — individuals, institutions and technologies — that we can trust to help us sort facts from lies online. The millions of bloggers who are constantly watching, fact-checking and exposing mistakes are a powerful example of "the wisdom of crowds" being assisted by a technology that is as open and omnipresent as we are.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-oe-naim20dec20,1,2129615.story?coll=la-news-a_section
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